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Prepping could see one of the most explosive quarters in its brief history. As 2017 comes to a close the terror of massive hurricanes, ravaging earthquakes and America’s deadliest mass shooting will be fresh in most of our minds. People will be exploring the world of preparedness to see how they can prepare for 2018 and all the trouble that may come with it.
Image Credit: instructables.com
Even if you are currently taking steps toward preparedness or set comfortably in a nest of skills and storage, I have 5 areas of improvement that most preppers will benefit from. We are going to explore areas that I think most preppers can improve upon. These are also great areas of improvement for new preppers as well.
Some of these “investments” will cost actual money and others will be reviews and decisions based on your current process or lack of process. That said, budgeting money for preps is a great practice and should be part of what you do. If you are saving 10% from each pay for savings you should also agree on a percentage for your preps.
From Scratch Cooking
All of America seems to be cooking. Cooking has made its way onto daytime shows. I want you to hone in on some very specific practices in the cooking process that will allow you to master any conditions. Male or female cooking from scratch and knowing how to manipulate raw ingredients could be the most important survival skill, period.
First concentrate on learning all of the basic cooking methods:
DRY HEAT
- Baking
- Grilling
- Roasting
- Deep Frying
- Pan Frying
MOIST HEAT
- Steaming
- Braising
- Boiling
- Poaching
Hygiene
The development of a serious hygiene program as part of your preps should be high on your list. I like to think about hygiene as storage, practices and renewables that can be grown year over year. The more renewables you include in your hygiene plan the more long-term solutions you will have. We all have the anxiety about running out of TP but what other things should we be considering when it comes to hygiene?
Cleaning and Disposal
- Rubber Gloves
- Trash Cans with Tight Fitting Lids
- Disposable Aprons
- Dust Masks
- Contractor Bags
- Bleach
Personal Hygiene Practices
- Handwashing
- Avoid Touching Eyes, Nose and Mouth
- Daily Hygiene System for Body
- Store Baking Soda for making things like deodorant, toothpaste and washing hair
Renewable Hygiene
- Licorice Root as a tooth cleaner
- Loofa Squash, dried, as a scrub brush
- Soapnut Tree for making Shampoo
- Fragrant herbs for flavoring soaps
- Making Lye from ash to make soap
Communications
The more you know about a disaster and its effects the better you will be able to react. The most basic and most important of all communications methods is having a radio that is powered by something other than batteries. There are great solar powered and hand crank radios on the market. You must first invest in a reliable emergency radio for your communications plan.
Outgoing communications, like two way or portable HAM radios are also great additions to your communications plan as well. Outgoing communications become a necessity if you have personal challenges like injuries or illness. Just be very careful about who you are communicating with.
Neighborhood communications are also very important following a disaster. You should cement relationships within your community today. The preppers greatest weakness is often the lack of relationship with the neighbors around them.
Drone Tech
You may look at those little quadcopters and think of them as little more than a child’s toy. The fact of the matter is, we are in the infancy of drone tech. You can ignore this type of tech if you want but it can add layers to your preparedness plans.
What better way to survey the damage following a disaster than from the eye in the sky that an HD drone camera can provide? There are also technologies that can stay grounded or climb walls. More beneficial could be the fishing drones that go underwater. I think of flooding and how these drones could give the average prepper information that only receding waters would allow.
Tiny Home BOLs
The Tiny House movement seemed to confuse many on the onset but it seems like people are understanding it more and more. What I would ask you to focus on are those camper style homes that are built directly on small trailers. If you are looking to maximize your bugout efforts but don’t have the money to invest into a $50,000 portion of rural land, this could be the answer.
These tiny trailer campers can be outfitted with many conveniences or they can just be used for storage and sleep. Either way, they are a must have for the trucking prepper.
It’s important to spend time on things like food storage and firearms but we must also consider the often neglected areas of prepping as well.
